Ninjakiwi's latest RPG mixes card game mechanics with statistics, explorations, quests and more. Aetheron is a turn-based, strategy, fantasy role-playing game that offers a surprising amount of depth to even the most casual player. In short order you find yourself conscripted by the mayor of a nearby town in order to help defend against "Loathsome Bandits" with only arms and armor as your compensation. It might not sound very glorious to start with, but there's more in store for you than you might expect. You'll need an account to play if you don't want to sign in with Facebook, but registry is quick and painless. (You don't even need to supply a real e-mail address if ponying up your own makes you antsy.)

In the beginning, players are required to choose one of the three classes: the rogue, the wizard or the fighter. As you might have already guessed, rogues deal mainly in surprise attacks, warriors are straightforward fighters, and wizards work mainly with spells. It's probably best to choose a role that already suits your natural playing style as your selection will drastically affect a good chunk of your gameplay. For example, if you're like me and enjoy massive amounts of burst damage, you'll probably want to avoid the slow-moving warrior who spends far too much time exchanging blows and absorbing hits. Having chosen your character class, you'll be prompted to select one of the four elements for yourself. Your choice here is mostly a superficial thing; it helps dictates what cards you'll receive in the beginning of the game and what NPCs will call you but not much else.

Those accustomed to the logistics of Magic the Gathering will probably be perfectly at home in combat; the one big difference is the involvement of a weapon. Those foreign to the idea, however, might find this absolutely daunting but don't worry, it isn't as scary as it looks. Combat is turn-based, so take your time and read all the text that pops up when you mouse over your cards, which details what each one will do. Essentially, you'll want to keep track of your health and energy displayed on the side of the screen; the red and blue bars respectively. You spend energy to use certain cards, and if your health runs out from taking damage, you lose the battle. Win, and you'll gain gold and experience points. While you only have a small number of cards at the beginning, you can purchase more with the gold you earn throughout the game.

Navigation is handled via a set of icons on a bar at the top of the screen that allow you to fight, explore towns, travel to other areas, and more at the click of the mouse. As you progress, your character will inevitably level up and permit you to add points to their statistics. It's here that the game opens up even further, allowing you to craft the character that best fits your personal playing style. There are also equipment that you can acquire from both quests and victories in combat. These items are also capable of being socketed with gems of various abilities, allowing you to further refine your performance.

Of course, there's even more to the game. You'll find yourself gallivanting off to fight at different locations as you attempt to fufill the requirements of your quests. Sadly, there isn't much depth to the quests; they're all pretty much your standard 'kill this, collect that' affair. There are buildings that allow you to convert the crystals you acquire to things like potions, a hall of heroes that has yet to be explained, town halls that let you, via the usage of imperial crystals, trigger certain area-wide benefits. Ninjakiwi also promises the ability to engage in duels with other players once they've added the final coating of polish to the game. Of course, if you prefer single-player, you'll be happy to know that multiplayer is completely optional, as is the ability to purchase special credits or gold in game. Atheron can be played and enjoyed without spending a penny.

Analysis: Aetheron dances the thin line between innovation and too much of a good thing. At its core, Atheron is a role-playing game. It has statistics, quests, experience points, things to purchase and people to kill. Stripped of its card game mechanics and given a standard combat system, Aetheron would remain a pretty engaging affair. However, Ninjakiwi made a gamble and took things further by introducing card-game dynamics to the system. Their decision made the game significantly more complicated than what most would expect from a casual game, something that could have been off-set by a more in-depth tutorial, or maybe a help system. However, those persistent enough to get past the steep learning curve will likely find themselves well-rewarded.

More than anything else, Aetheron feels like a game of personal choice. While the quests and the storyline feel relatively pedestrian, the amount of customization available to even the most casual of players borders upon staggering. The inclusion of the four elements as well as the card game dynamics is probably one of the best things in the game for me. However, what I liked best was how Ninjakiwi structured the three classes. Depending on what you pick, the cards that you receive will differ. Playing a rogue, for example, can already feel extremely rewarding thanks to the sheer burst damage that the class can inflict but Aetheron takes it a step further by allowing you to further modify the experience. Like in Magic the Gathering, players can choose to utilize a variety of elements to best fit their style. In the case of the rogue, you could choose to veer away from the standard 'glass cannon' mentality and opt for a more defensive build. Coupled with equipment bonuses and the constant effect of your statistics, the potential is pretty much endless.

Because of how engrossing the gameplay is, I can't help but feel that they should have delved a little further into the appearance of the game. Players can choose one of three classes as well as an appropriate gender. However, that's as far as their character generation goes. There are no options for changing facial features, hair color or even the ability to see how weapons might look like on your character. It's a bit of a minor quibble but it's something I've come to expect from anything that is remotely linked with RPGs. Fortunately, the artwork present in the game is quite nice to look at and surprisingly detailed, lending itself nicely to the fantasy theme without being overblown.

What I'm most excited about, however, is the potential for future multi-player play. Being a veteran of Magic the Gathering, nothing gets to me more than the potential to sit down and play a round with a worthy opponent. With the twists that Aetheron has incorporated into its gameplay, I'm certain that the duels will devour more than my fair share of time. Given the potential for group play, I wonder if this will include the ability to tag-team opponents in both PvE (Player versus Enemies) and PvP (Player versus Player) matches. For now, however, Aetheron is still an engrossing single player experience, with a lot to offer both card game and RPG enthusiasts.

Update: Many of the bugs that players have been reporting in the comments have been fixed by the developer, so if you had issues playing previously, you should give this one another try!

80 Comments

Help!!! I am trying to create a character. The characters kept changing/spinning to the next, but let me go to the next section, but then the elements keep spinning and won't let me press continue or go back. :( I want to play!

I think it could do with a non-saving, "play as guest" mode. I don't play anything that requires me to sign up just to see if it is something worth playing, on a matter of principle. Regardless of whether comprehensive reviews have been written.

If the player's first sight of a game on the developer's homepage is a sign-up screen, you're doing it wrong.

I have not been on jayisgames for a while but I'm glad some unknown force made me try the address. I've been looking for a game like this for the longest time.

I have not played it yet but if it has some kind of membership fee then I am leaving. Otherwise I may stick to this game. I know most single player games don't have memberships so I won't really worry but lately it seems like even flash games seem to become greedy.

I think I'm going to take the warrior path...I don't care much for magic and rouges are known to change game-to-game.

yea, i've got the same problem as librarysmiles..
after signing in i'm given the option of choosing a character class, but the three just keep rotating incredibly quickly. could progress to the next screen, but the elements are spinning too. the dialog box keeps changing as well, one with a 'next' option and one without. also, i believe the green arrows are misalligned.
anyone know a solution for this? looks like an awesome game:)

Kind of don't get it... I'm a huge fan of Magic and I don't see any real incentives to get new card packs here. You choose 5 main cards... and those 5 cards are basically your entire strategy... battles go to fast for any new cards to have any use. interesting, but pass.

I like it. There are some interesting strategies here, and contrary to what BobbyK mentioned, I somewhat like the fact that the opening rounds - opening strategy - can be determined, but after that it's a question of what else you chose to include. When you're dealing with small fry, the battles are (as he said) too fast for the other stuff to matter... but when you're pushing yourself, that's no longer necessarily the case. The "Dungeon" format is definitely more like an old-fashioned CCG in this regard... in fact, I found myself deliberately putting my less preferred cards into the starting hand, trying to estimate how many of them I'd use up before reaching the end of the dungeon. Neat!

I do have one question, though... has anyone figured out why certain cards appear to have "slots" at the top (tier I rogue card "Dirty Fighting" does, as does tier III "Slaughter")? I tried to slot gems into them, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere in the interface which will allow this to happen. Would certainly be an interesting touch... but the documentation is certainly shallow at best, and it's in cases like this that the lack shows most.

Enjoyable, but a bit glitchy. I never receive the gold from quest rewards, and sometimes when I level up I get a ton of skill points which can't be added (and I have to log out and back in to make it work normally).

I think you can put a junk address in for the email address. I've not received anything from it so far so it isn't used for validation.

I have hit the gold issue from quests. Sometimes it gets added to your gold total but changing to another screen and it gets deleted again. Because of this, it is almost impossible to buy anything from the shop so you can't boost your character. It is now turning into a bit a grind as I can't seem to progress to the higher level monsters.

I started off as a wizard and played through the first set of quests from the first town. I lost interest when I found that every battle was a certain win, almost regardless of strategy. I'm sure it gets harder and more complicated, but am not sure I want to stick around waiting for that to happen.

I found "The Books of Dark Magic" to be a much better turn-based game, even if a bit simpler. The combats in that one seemed a bit better balanced, especially early on.

Wow this game has a ton of issues. First, it doesn't explain a lot of things. Like others have posted above, I'm getting cheated out of gold so I've hardly been able to upgrade any of my gear (and afaict can't sell things I no longer need either).

I've managed to get to a level 5 rogue and traveled to the Imperial Frontier rendering my character completely stuck. I don't have enough money to travel back anywhere and I'm too weak to win any battles on the map in order to earn gold.

Also not receiving the promised gold from quests. Don't know if it's a glitch in the gold system or if the amounts presented may be an artifact of prior versions where amounts offered have changed, but in either case, some NPCs owe me some effin $$$ and I intend to collect!

Has anyone figured out what the combat combos do? It makes a big deal of them with flashy graphics, but you don't get crystals.

I also am hitting occasional glitches with loading cards. Once, I realized it when I was in combat that my cards hadn't loaded at all. The other time, I saw it happening before I entered combat and double-checked that they were loaded in the card collection screen. I was only showing two cards loaded, but I couldn't load any more because it told me I had the max (6). I entered combat hoping that would resolve it, but it didn't. Hard to win a battle as a wizard when you've only got a staff.

Also, had anyone found a way to de-slot crystals from items or am I correct in thinking this appears to be permanent?

And the pictures for items and enemies are sometimes there, other times not. This game could be fun, but needs some serious tuning up and a real help section.

Also, what happened to the main quest? It just stopped. I'm doing side quests, since I no longer have a main quest.

Finally, I completed two quests in Sweetwater that were for Tumblespar, but when I returned to Tumblespar it only gave me the reward for one. I had to go back to Sweetwater then return to Tumblespar for it to give me the second.

At the same time there are highlights. I enjoy the combat system, and I like how I can select a starting hand, which leads me to consider which cards go together (at the moment I'm focused on quickly stunning and reducing defense, then lashing out with powerful attacks). I also think the curve is decent. I started out not knowing much, but the game's dynamics allowed me to pick it up easily. At the same time, the encounters are still challenging enough to make me be more innovative.

All in all, I really like this game and would like to see how it develops.

* You can put gems on items. In the character screen, click on the gem and then click on the item. Hover over the gems to see what bonuses they add. Look for diamond-shaped slots on the cards to see, I assume, how many gems they can hold. Also, you will be told exactly what bonus the gem does for each item (presumably it depends what type of item) and asked to confirm your choice after you click the gem on the item.

* You can wear badges which give useful bonuses. On the character screen are four empty shield-shaped spots. Click on them to see whether you've earned any badges, and to equip said badges.

* Combat Active didn't make a lot of sense to me at first, until I realized it isn't ON or OFF. You click on that, then click on each card that you want to be combat active. Took me surprisingly long to figure this out.

Things I haven't figured out:

* You can click the gems in battle. As far as I can tell, this means that now your cursor has a gem on it and you cannot do anything but Pass or Flee. Hm.

* What does speed do for you? Combat initiative, perhaps? I don't ever seem to miss so I'm doubting hit chance.

"The "Element Combo" and "Aetheron" are a result of a sequence of card types played i.e. 3 water cards played activates a Water Combo for whoever finished it. Depending on the element, different effects activate. Fire - deals damage, Water - heals you, Earth - increases defense, Air - restores energy. Aetheron is when one of each element is played in any combination sequence and is unbroken. When this happens, a weaker version of each element combo activates, but all at once."

@Parmeisan:
Speed seems to affect initiative. My rogue always goes first (well over 100 speed). My fighter sometimes goes first, but usually second (less than 0 speed). Also, if you hover your cursor over your speed, it will tell you the chance to evade (half damage) and attack twice (only when using your weapon).

@Nitchy:
It tells you what the combos do at the top. Three of one element gives you that element's combo while one of each gives you an aetheron combo.

Fire: Damages the enemy
Water: Heals you
Earth: Raises defense and heals a little
Air: Raises attack and something else that I forget. Heal? Speed?
Aetheron: A little of everything. More in total than elemental combos, but not as much in any one thing.

The time based recovery of health and energy is a horrible decision; I'm at level 9 and I regularly have to wait more than 5 minutes between fights if I want to fill up. I know it's there to encourage people to pay money so they can have potions, but seriously, just make it a pay game at that point.

questions (respectively): "You can click the gems in battle" and "why certain cards appear to have 'slots'".

After a bit of testing, I found that in battle, gems may be added to a card with a slot. As far as I can tell there are a couple of 'provisos':
a) the gem must be of the same element as the card. b) for the additional effect the gem must be added on the SAME turn the card is played (if it is added, then you play a different card, the gem will be stuck in the card and have no effect once it is played).

After a bit more experimenting, and wasting more gems I found that when they are slotted doesn't matter. As long as the gems are in, their effects will be added to the cards, and then discarded.

There are a couple assumptions I'm making because I haven't been able to test them: recollection or any spell that brings cards back into the hand will not bring the gems back with the cards. Secondly, Aether gems (or the gold ones) may be added to cards of any type.

Probably I clicked on of a type I didn't have then, because I think I tried clicking on cards. But that makes a lot of sense.

More discoveries:

* Every enemy has an element type. You can tell what it is by looking at the game area - it will be coloured slightly and have a symbol. This probably effects the damage you do to it. I'm almost certain that it determines the gem you get when you beat it. So if you're low on one gem type, go fight monsters of that type. (I'm also beginning to think you might only get gems at the end if the fight was tough enough, but that's based off of like 3 fights).

* I'm pretty sure that combos can stack. If you had a fight history like so:

Fire, fire, water, fire, water, water

Then I *believe* that using water will not only cause a water combo, but remove *all* instances of water from the list, also causing a fire combo to go off.

In addition to the gold bugs (gold quest rewards not always being applied, gold spent on travel not always being deducted), I've had cards vanish from my inventory and reappear the next deay. Crystals purchased with credits seemed to be unavailable for turning into Aetheron crystals, then vanished the next day. Some cards with long-term effects are hugely bugged (For instance, Shield Press gives opponent -5 defense, then adds 5 defense every subsequent round). Recollection doesn't seem to work at all. There's the skill point bug when you get a skill point quest reward and level at the same time.

There's also a tragic design flaw in the cost to travel, in that you can become stuck in a town with no way to leave and no way to earn the money to leave.

I'm enjoying the game, but one minor criticism is that when an opponent uses a card to steal gold during the fight, you don't get it back for defeating them. It's very frustrating to lose gold when you won the fight.

Even more interestingly... the effect of slotting a gem appears to vary not just on the element (which one would expect) but in fact on the specific card! That's really cool, and even more shame on them for not documenting this at all. Certainly makes an excess of a particular crystal type less annoying, as long as you can find a useful "augmentable" card of that element.

Definitely gives a whole new dimension to the resource management of the game.

All of these are rares. In fact, viewing the Full Collection, all cards with a rarity of Rare or Epic appear to have slots in them, although in certain cases (Dirty Trick is an example) the slot isn't visible until you magnify the card; the smaller "background" version of the graphic appears to have omitted that detail. Probably a last-minute rarity change, I'd guess.

With some better documentation and a whole host of bugfixes, this could definitely turn out to be a winner.

It would be a nice game except for the health/energy recharge time between fights, which soon gets up to 5 minutes, 8 minutes, 20 minutes. They want you to use your credit card to buy health potions which remove the need for the wait times. It's a sneaky form of crippleware, but hey, it's their game. Just realize what you're getting into.

- speed doesn't affect only who play first or second. It made evasion and bonus attack possible (evasion : you get only half of the damage ; bonus attack : you attack two times instead of one). Very useful...
- making a color combo made all the elements of the same color disappear, and so you can have a new combo with the elements left. Aethron combo make all the elements disappear.
- you sometimes have to go and accept a quest, even if you already know about it, to get the gold and the promised XP

@Thorn - It doesn't say anything about affecting who goes first, but my rogue (speed > 200) never goes second anymore. Ever. Not even against the end boss. So I'm pretty sure it's - shocking! - an undocumented but real effect.

sorry for the doublepost, but another glitch:
I am level 4 and have a base defense of 6. I have two batches who both give me a +1 defense. Boots and a clock also give each +1 defense, yet I only have a defense of 9.

The speed.. i add the points on the level up and nothing changes, shall i understand i'm loosing my hardly earned points??? than the same as above - gold never added for the quests. And my personal opinion the game is a bit disbalanced - with the rogue i stucked because i couldn't defeat the spectres in Throne, and i didn't have money.But with the wizard of 12 level i have 7000 + of GP. And rather often i find magic items that cost a lot. And finally i think the wizard is too much stronger than a rogue(don't know how about the fighter)

It's a shame the game is so riddled with bugs. It would be rather fun otherwise.

The most annoying bug I've found:
You cannot assign any skill points after hitting level 6. Tried it 5 times, varying my actions each time, attempting to avoid the bug. No luck. The character is efective locked at Level 6, forever, making the game completely unplayable.

I managed to play through this despite the bugs. I lost all my credits trying to buy crystals (it took my credits but never gave me anything in trade) -- that was the worst.

I really loathed the quest gold bug until I discovered how to sell items. You sell item cards in the card management screen -- bottom tab. Items are very expensive and produce lots of gold when sold. I now have 170k and nothing to spend it on! Oh - I didn't get the 10k gold badge either!

reached max level and did everything possible (except a few side quests) and I really enjoyed the game.

admittably, a bit glitchy, but considering the fact that this is a beta, this game looks very promising.

one thing that I would like, however, is an option to send a message to the developers or a forum for the players to gather. I've found a few bugs, both small and big, but I have no way of informing the creators even if I want to.

[Your comments posted here are very often read by the developers. We are one of the leading sites that review browser games such as this, and we are well known and respected in the Flash development community, especially due to our tolerant, compassionate, and passionate community. -Jay]

It seems like if you use a damage-causing effect of the element which "beats" your opponent's element, you do bonus elemental damage. For instance, if attacking an Earth enemy and you use an Air effect, you might get (30 + 22 Air - 20 defense). I've also seen a small bonus on "reduce defense" type effects, I think.

Your weapon attacks count as being of your own element for this purpose, which can be really handy.

I've made it to level 10 and can still apply skill points. It seems like there's a bug there which is hitting people inconsistently. :(

I know someone included a link to the beta version blog post, but since I haven't seen the link to the regular Aetheron post, which includes some gameplay instructions and background, here it is: http://ninjakiwi.com/blog/aetheron-rpg/

With regard to the game itself, I'm not going to rate it on JIG quite yet, as (a) I don't want to give it a higher rating than it deserves, considering all the bugs, and (b) I don't want to give it a low rating and discourage others from playing what is sure to be a 4- or 5-point game in the near future.
Keep up the good work, Ninjakiwi!

PS: I admit, this is very much like what I wanted to see from Wizards of the Coast (a.k.a. Hasbro) for Magic:TG - a world that combines physical combat with card-based magic. (I'm still waiting for a Magic tabletop RPG, though I'm not sure how such a thing could plausibly work.)

So very fun and so very many bugs. So many bugs, oh my god, all the bugs.

Credits are wholly unreliable. Anything purchased with them may or may not exist, depending on the game's internal desire.

Gold vanishes for no reason - no, actually, there IS a reason, any quest that involves travelling will DEDUCT the cash from your wallet, instead of adding it.

This is not to say gold does not occasionally vanish for no reason.

Which it does.

Quests sometimes repeat and sometimes stop functioning.

Don't EVER try to put nothing but Speed in when you gain a level, or the game will completely ignore your input and forget you ever levelled up.

Sometimes cards don't work. As in, they remain greyed out even when the specific conditions required for use (sneaking, stunned enemy, has initiative) are in effect.

I have bought card packs that have never made it to my collection.

I have bought items that have not made it into my equipment.

In both cases, the gold/crystals will ALWAYS vanish as though the transaction was completed normally.

This is such a fun game and holy cow, it is infested with ludicrous bugs.

And of course, there is always the option of paying real money for in-game stuff.

DON'T DO IT.

Ninja Kiwi deserves support, but you'll only frustrate the hell out of yourself spending cash for gold that vanishes, crystals that disappear and pretend to still exist, cards that malfunction and just a big, thumping, bug-riddled lump of a REALLY FUN GAME.

For all who don't get gold from quests, here's a player-favored gold bug. In short, you can sell your old equipment, get the gold but you still get to keep the item (and can sell it again). Go to the deck and click sell cards. From the bottom tab, click on an equipment card (something that's no longer equipped). Click yes, but nothing happens. Click no and go back to the character or store screen and you've got the gold from the "sale." Rinse, repeat. no more gold issues. Too bad there's nothing worth spending it on.

Yeah, I think they may have fixed several bugs. Travelling is easier and the quest-money bug, which had been affecting me consistently since about level 9, hasn't happened since.

Thank you to ScottK for pointing out how to sell items! I've been looking how to do that since I started. Not because I need money, but because there are so many items I don't want any more. (Note for others looking: It's in the *card* screen, the last tab sticking out of the side of the book).

Seconding the request for the location of the Hook Mountains, I swear I've looked everywhere several times.

Also, I just wanted to say that the wait time between combats can actually be kind of nice, depending on how you want to play the game. I like to leave it open on my computer and just go in every once in a while and play a bit. It stops me from wasting too much time at once on it, but when I look back again I'm usually fully healed. (Then again, I went all-out defense and have never bought extra HP, so it takes less time for me to heal, about 7 minutes from empty to full at level 18).

Ah. Answer: The Rogue Imperial Quest must be bugged, because after wandering a bit (and killing something or other in a few places including Stormguard Keep) I noticed the Throne was green (quest to hand in) and when I went there, it told me I had killed the dude and I got a reward for it.

Pretty sure I never killed the dude, and certainly never found the Hook Mountains.

Right, did anyone else notice that place names are colour-coded? Green means you have a quest to turn in, and I think Sand-coloured means quest available (although not necessarily of your level).

I've waited a couple weeks and tried again, but I am still running into the same problem in the create-a-character section. In the elements section, the go back and continue buttons are slightly mashed together and the green arrows are blinking furiously to the right of those buttons and I can't click either go back or continue (and the next button is continually flickering). I am using Firefox and the latest edition of Flash. This time I tried IE also, but then the game froze in middle of an ad. during the loading section and the browser window went white. I tried multiple times. I'm thinking about trying the browser Opera to see if it makes a difference. I really do want to play the game.

I just got the "Armageddon" (level 3 rare) red card - does 400 to you and opponent. At first I didn't think it would be all that great since I can normally get through a fight while losing only a fraction of the 400 HP damage this card does to the caster. Except for one important thing: I also have a level 1 rare card called "You shall Not Pass" (Immune to all damage for 2 rounds) The combination of these 2 cards means that most fights are just silly:
round 1: "You Shall Not Pass"
round 2: "Armageddon"
next fight: rinse, repeat.
And there is just no hope for Air types, who will take 600 dmg from this card. The only baddie I've found where this doesn't work so great is Marauders because they can dispel even from stun, leaving you exposed.

I haven't tried it with "Mirror Attack" or "Haven" but it would be interesting to find out.
Anyone else have some good combos they like to use?

Little help please. I've got a lvl 20 Wizard. As usually equipped: 61/48/70 Attack:78-91 Health:479/Energy:530. Having all kinds of problems beating the last Shawholm dungeon. I've made it past the first few enemies a couple times but with no real chance of beating the final boss. Lately, as I've tried different deck strategies, I haven't even been faring that well against the 1st few bosses.

Did I steer wrong when assigning points to this character? If so, how should I do better with the next one? Do I just need better cards? I'd say I have about 85% of them, but I don't have duplicates for lots of the good ones. Any advice would be appreciated.

And another bug I don't think I've seen mentioned: after quitting a dungeon, sometimes my cards won't reset until I complete another battle, and until then, I only draw a new card after playing a card, even if I have room.

Other than that, pretty interesting game. Be curious and mouse your cursor over every single thing to learn more about the game. Read the game guide by pressing the HELP [?] Button on top right hand corner. =)

I was intrigued enough to want to attempt to play it. (Un?)fortunately the creator couldn't figure out how to let someone sign up. It's bad enough when you ask for someone's email address to play a casual game such as this. But if you require information such as what country a person claims to be from in order to register, and cannot even figure out how to provide a way to allow a person to claim a country, you're not just doing it wrong. You fail programming forever.

And before some smartalec tries to chime in with 'you have to select the country from the dropdown menu', that's the part that was not functioning. I love many NinjaKiwi games, but this one is pure, utter, unadulterated complete fail.

This game was awesome until the time based recovery of health/energy started getting out of control. Waiting 2-3 mins between fights was acceptable. Now I regularly have to wait > 10 minutes after every fight just to restore health/energy. As others have noted in their comments above, it gets worse as you level up and I might end up waiting upto 20 minutes?!? This is a devious tactic to get people to pay for restore potions.

Why couldn't ninjakiwi simply have a premium mode where you pay like $10 or $15 so that you don't have to wait between turns ever again? I already paid a lot of money just to be able to buy some equipment (without paying $$ it would have taken forever to earn the money through quests - another nasty ploy). And I now I realize I have to buy potions frequently just to be able to play the game without waiting. Very annoying. Nefarious scheme, and I hate ninjakiwi for doing this. I'm not playing this game any more until they introduce a premium mode where you don't have to spend your hard-earned money every hour just to be able to keep playing without interruption.

Just visit alchemist in a town, he will make your fire, water, earth, water crystals into one aetheron crystal and then you can make 5 potions off aetheron crystal.

Hint: Play with other characters while waiting for hp to restore, then in high levels spend potions when needed and grind on monsters that can frequently drop crystals for more potions.

Everything in this game that is buyable for real life cash is optional, you can get more potions yourself by using alchemist or doing some quests that reward these, imperial credits by levelling up characters.

It is up to you to pay or not, i suggest you wait those minutes while playing with another character and then switch when low hp. After you are higher level just convert water, earth, fire and air crystals into aetheron crystals that you can use to make 5 potions. This can be done with alchemist in town. When you need more crystals you can just grind/level up on monsters which you think can drop those crystals frequenty.

The first parts of the game are amazing, however as you level up to the higher levels I find myself spending almost the entire fight stunned while I struggle to do more than just sit there and take it.

I absolutely love this game, I play MTG too so I enjoy the card aspects,but the weapon is awesome too. It takes some time to get accustomed to your characters and the abilities of each card but once you get the hang of it its pretty great :)

Totally agree with the character customization though, my male and female wizards look like twins hahaha

I get very annoyed when I get tier 3 cards, then realize that im only level 5...
My cards are terrible, and i only wish to get some energy drain card that is my level...
Game is taking too long and selling items multiple times doesn't work for me.

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